It seems like you can’t take two duck steps in SL without bumping into some drama. Before I started reading the fashion blogs the only real drama I was aware of involved either a rather public and nasty dissolution of a hastily entered into partnership that resulted in stalking and an alt being created or griefing of some person, event or store by way of dropping lots of lag or laugh inducing prims on top of them. Ah, the good old days.In comparison, since I've started joining up with fashion groups and reading the fashion blogs my eyes have been opened to a whole new world of drama. There's the drama of one group of bloggers swearing another group as their mortal enemies and pointing fingers at each other when asked how the latest debate started. Or, detailed deliberations as to whether or not someone with an avatar in SL has actually died in RL or if it's all just a big mind fuck. And, let us not forget the ever present debate on whether or not someone stole photo sourced skin textures from artistic websites and used them as their own with the type of elaborate evidence presented (in the form of marked up side by side pictures comparing highlights) that would make any lawyer weep. Tying into that last drama is the issue of skin and hair being stolen by a copybot and resold or even given away for free.

I recently received a group notecard in-world from a popular shoe store and what it said is what prompted me to write this entry. The notecard stated that a certain tropical themed store on a certain sim was selling stolen hair and also had it in their Midnight Mania board and it went on to encourage everyone not to visit this particular tropical themed store. So far, I'm okay with this as I understand that people far more talented than me worked very hard on their original creations and they should be the only ones to benefit from the sale of those items. What really caught my attention and raised my ire was when I read that the owners of the shoe store would "perma ban" from the group anyone found in their store with stolen hair. I got to thinking about that statement and wondered:

1. Will the owner be inspecting the hair of everyone that enters their store?

2. If they find that someone IS wearing stolen hair in their store, will they take their money if they choose to buy something there?

3. What's gonna happen to the poor noobie that won some stolen hair on an MM board or had some given to them and they have no idea that it's stolen or even how to check if it is? Will they be banned or ostracized publicly (i've seen that happen before)?

4. Is there really so little to do in SL that people have to create and perpetuate never ending drama?